When ol’ Billy Shakespeare wrote,

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

He most assuredly was not talking about an athletic team.

As you probably heard by now (if you’re now living under a rock like those guys in the Geico Commercial), the Forces of Political Correctness are aligning themselves in a concerted effort to force the NFL’s Washington Redskins to change the name of the storied franchise.

However, just as Liberals are wont to, they disregard whether as many people are as offended as they think there  are.

Foxnews.com reports that

Two Washington D.C. radio stations have pulled advertisements paid for by a group calling on the NFL’s Washington Redskins to change their name.

The ad was scheduled to air this weekend on WJFK-FM, a sports-talk station, and WPGC-FM, a so-called “Rhythmic” station. Paid for by the Oneida Indian Nation, the spot called for Redskins owner Daniel Snyder to change the team’s nickname, which it has had since 1933.

“By changing his team’s name, Mr. Snyder can create a better historical legacy for himself — one of tolerance and mutual respect, not of racial epithets,” reads part of the ad’s script. “Native Americans do not want their people to be hurt by such painful epithets. We just want to be treated as what we all are: Americans.”

According to the Washington Post, Steve Swenson, senior vice president of CBS Radio Washington, said in an e-mail to the Oneida Indian Nation that “[b]ased on the amount of on-air debate, adding paid commercials from one side is not something that we think is beneficial for this discussion and for our audience.” Both WJFK and WPGC are owned by CBS Radio.

“It is unfortunate and un-American that the station permits the team to slander Native Americans on the public airwaves with the use of the r-word, but doesn’t permit Native Americans to use the same airwaves to object to the use of a racial slur,” Oneida Indian Nation spokesman Ray Halbritter told the Post.

Ads calling on the Redskins to change the team’s name have aired in every market where Washington has played this season. The Redskins host the Chicago Bears Sunday afternoon. Snyder has vowed never to change the team’s name.

The Oneida Indian Nation may Object, but that doesn’t mean that all Indians object to the name, as ABC News Reports…

There are Native American schools that call their teams Redskins. The term is used affectionately by some natives, similar to the way the N-word is used by some African-Americans. In the only recent poll to ask native people about the subject, 90 percent of respondents did not consider the term offensive, although many question the cultural credentials of the respondents.

All of which underscores the oft-overlooked diversity within Indian Country.

“Marginalized communities are too often treated monolithically,” said Carter Meland, a professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota.

“Stories on the mascot issue always end up exploring whether it is right or it is wrong, respectful or disrespectful,” said Meland, an Ojibwe Indian.

He believes Indian mascots are disrespectful, but said: “It would be interesting to get a sense of the diversity of opinion within a native community.”

Those communities vary widely.

Tommy Yazzie, superintendent of the Red Mesa school district on the Navajo Nation reservation, grew up when Navajo children were forced into boarding schools to disconnect them from their culture. Some were punished for speaking their native language. Today, he sees environmental issues as the biggest threat to his people.

The high school football team in his district is the Red Mesa Redskins.

“We just don’t think that (name) is an issue,” Yazzie said. “There are more important things like busing our kids to school, the water settlement, the land quality, the air that surrounds us. Those are issues we can take sides on.”

“Society, they think it’s more derogatory because of the recent discussions,” Yazzie said. “In its pure form, a lot of Native American men, you go into the sweat lodge with what you’ve got — your skin. I don’t see it as derogatory.”

Neither does Eunice Davidson, a Dakota Sioux who lives on the Spirit Lake reservation in North Dakota. “It more or less shows that they approve of our history,” she said.

Political Correctness is actually nothing more than censorship.It’s a censorship of words, thoughts,  even dreams, by people who believe that not only are they the “smartest people on the room” but also the most caring.

And, because, in their own minds, they are the “smartest people on the room”, Liberals do not care what you and I think about the efforts toward changing the name of an NFL Franchise, they just want to show America and the wide, wide World how enlightened they are.

Pay no attention to the storied history of the Washington Franchise.,, say the Liberals, it is more important that those aggrieved get the notoriety that they deserve…and possible some remuneration.

Who will the Liberals try to get to get of their name, next? The Atlanta Braves, the Florida State Seminoles?

Distinguished actor Gary Oldham, Commissioner Gordon of Batman fame said that,

Political correctness has become a straightjacket.

Indeed it has.

If there had been this straightjacket in place back in the 1970s, Archie Bunker’s chair would not be sitting in a place of prominence in the Smithsonian Museum, as a tribute to one of the most successful, ground-breaking shows in television histor. “All in the Family”, revolved around an average working class stiff in New York. The program, produced by Norman Lear (himself a politically-active Liberal) made us laugh at our own misconceptions, while showing us that “sticks and stones, or life’s vicissitudes, may break our bones, or our hearts, but words will never hurt us”, and turned a character, who was originally planned to be an example of a  hateful bigot, into a beloved television icon, as Americans identified with Archie…laughing with him, instead of at him.

This push to change the name of the Washington Redskins, led by a bunch of wussified “smartest people in the room”, including President Barack Hussein Obama, is , as ol’ Billy Shakespeare would have described it,

“Much Ado About Nothing”.

Until He Comes,

KJ